Purgatorio
by Suki
Summary: Those that believe the Cathedral is haunted placate the phantom by leaving him to his penance. Only the new cloister charge has the audacity - or naievety - to confront him.


_Author's Note: This fanfiction takes place post-TPOTO. I reserve the right to combine the novel and musical at will and am not responsible for any resulting confusion . -;_

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_Disclaimer: Characters, plot, and situations native to _The Phantom of the Opera _are not mine. All else is original to me._

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**Organ Music in the Cathedral**

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The cathedral was haunted.

Most knew and accepted this. In the bowls of the night, when all else was still, the wailing organ music threw up its chords to shake the supreme structure from its roots to its highest pinnacle. The monks who tended the lower regions of the church huddled over their midnight prayers, and even the sisters in their separate cloister were visited by it on the wind.

Old Father Bunicci was assured it was the devil, carrying on and shaking the cathedral to bring it crumbling. The other monks took little heed of him, but silently crossed themselves and said an extra Ave. Otherwise, the organ music was only referred to indirectly, as that strange wind in the vaults or the music of an ancient building.

But the organ music had not always troubled the columns and vibrated the thick stained-glass. It began to appear some few months ago, and gradually rose in frequency and violence until the brothers gave up denying its presence and began ignoring it. But at first, it was shallow, almost hesitant, as if trying out its voice after a long sleep.

It was about this time that a young woman arrived at the cloister. She was a Spaniard, small-boned and pale. Her last guardian, a great aunt, had died, and though she was of marrying age, the aunt's last request was that the care of her charge be bequeathed to the convent, of which she had formerly been a member. The girl looked like a wisp or some elfish thing. If her fair hair had been a bit brighter of her blue eyes a bit deeper, she might have looked an angel. But otherwise, her complexion gave her the look of perpetual illness. It might have been said that her outward appearance became transparent easily penetrated her bright, opaque soul. She was not loud or obtrusive or forward, but behind her water-colored eyes, an intelligence and the profundity of her somewhat structured inner workings could be viewed as through a lens. She was not well-educated in the traditional sense, but she one could tell at a glance that she was alert.

Her name was Francesca. She adjusted well to cloister life and had no difficulty in contributing to daily work. The nuns felt fondly of her and delighted in her novelty and unconventionality. She read books for pleasure, walked extensively through the passageways and stairwells of the cathedral, and prayed like an ordinary person in conversation. And she was obedient as well, but one felt that she was respectful more than subservient. She confessed once a week, attended vespers, and received the Eucharist every Sunday. She read St. Augustine, like a man.

Because she was such a good girl, the nuns and monks were lenient with her, and she often found time to herself in solitude. Mother Marguerite would send her off with a smile, waving at her as if she were but a four-year-old child, and Francesca would grasp her hand sweetly and whisper away like a pale shadow.

It was during one such time when Francesca was walking about the pews after the evening prayers, reciting Merton. A low chord, so subtle as not to be noticed at first, grew in the back of her mind. It rose, and she felt the pressure of it more than she heard a sound. At once it struck her that the sound was not inside herself. It lifted into the hollows of the high-vaulted ceilings and nested there.

At first, Francesca thought the cathedral must be humming. It was a sad sound, and she was not frightened, but rocked with it. When she returned to the cloister, she did not think to mention what she'd heard to the sisters. It was not out of her ability to conceive such a thing as an ancient and holy thing so great as the cathedral to make its own music.

She did not hear the organ again. One day, she was delivering a basket of vegetables from the cloister's garden to the brother's scullery. She placed the offerings into the hands of Brother Riccardo.

"God hail you, sweet child," he greeted her. He was broad-shouldered, of medium height, and slightly balding, but thin. His face had a look of eternal solemnity, like a benevolent marble statue of St. Francis. "What do you do to keep company these days?"

"I'm learning my Merton," she confided. "Though the sisters think it a useless talent for a woman."

"Not useless," Brother Riccardo shook his head. "_Paradise Lost_ is arguably the last great epic."

"It is difficult," Francesca noted.

"Well," the brother smiled as he turned to wash the vegetables, "if you find you can make time throughout the day, the sisters tell me you have a voice for singing which would be much appreciated in our small choir."

Francesca did not blush, nor did she boast. She took his words into account seriously, turning them over in her mind. "I sing all right," she acknowledged. "My aunt used to like me to sing to her sometimes at night. But it was never a talent worthy of pursing."

"Oh?" Riccardo turned kindly eyes to her. "But all talent is worthy in the eyes of God. Think on it, and join us tomorrow for some hymns."

His words shook loose a thought. "Brother?" she asked musingly. "A few weeks ago I heard a low music in the cathedral. It was empty in the chapel, and I was alone, but I don't think it was in my mind alone. Do you think it possible that sometimes angels sing to us, so lowly that we might not hear, but which, if we are careful, we might otherwise detect? Do you think – "

But she stopped, for the monk had paled. "Francesca," he said quietly, and it bothered her that he would not look at her face as she was accustomed. "Forget what you've heard. Do not pay heed to any music you may hear past nightfall."

Francesca might have pressed more questions if had been any other brother, but Brother Riccardo never spoke harshly or unnecessarily before. She felt at once that if it merited his strictness, it must be something of great importance, and so she took his words into her and put them away safely.

The following afternoon, Francesca left the cloister and descended the hill down through the trees, just beginning to bare their skeletal branches to the gray-glass sky. It was dim today, with a thin layer of clouds, and the warming windows of the cathedral pulsed with welcoming crimson and gold. When she entered the chapel, though the candles burned and statues of saints opened their arms hospitably to her and looked down with tranquil faces, it was empty of all life or movement. Francesca wondered if Brother Riccardo had not mistaken the time of the choral practice. In actuality, there was miscommunication about location, but the young woman did not know this at the time, and she sat down in a pew. After a few minutes of waiting, she lay along the wooden, slender bench, and without realizing fell asleep.

She awoke much later that night to the insistent drone of an organ key, and shot up as one from a nightmare. But the chapel was still empty, as is was not yet quite time for evening prayer. Francesca stood slowly. The sound of the music crescendoed subtly from a low chord to a high, self-righteous howl, and Francesca's first instinct was to dash across the polished tile and throw open the high doors and run out into the dark away form that bright, sharp sound. But her strong will got the better of her, and she suffered herself to hear that painful music, as it drowned her in a cacophonic melody, a paradox of the guttural and the harmonious. It was the sound of pure genius.

Warily, she moved out of the pew and tred up to the alter. She stopped, studying the large, painted crucifix, and studied the image of the crucified Savior, deciphering. Once having determined that this was no test of her faith or nightmare of a terror realm, Francesca concluded that the music must be made, and if it must be made, it must be made by someone or something. And of course, the first thing she of which she thought was her choir. She did not make the connection of the forbidden cathedral song and this bitter symphony.

The music was quite easy to hear, but it was not drowning. She knew, therefore, that it must be a bit of a ways away, which proved some difficulty, as moving about the cathedral was like exploring the innards of a gilded, hollow giant.

She walked for some time, never after able to recall how much time passed. Golden candlesticks, intricately carved patterns, and bright paintings with white-eyed and billowing-robed figures blended. The windows too became consequent, one after the other, with their gothicly curved points and meaningless mosaic color patterns.

Her senses led her to the very back of the cathedral, a place once used but now mainly an area of storage. There was, however, one part neatly kept, and that was the entrance to the catacombs. Francesca had never seen it before. She knew of its existence. The relief doors pictured scenes from Purgatory and Judgment, needless manifestations of terrors and fears from a more primitive time. What was shocking about the doors, however, was that they were slightly ajar. She had never before seen them open and felt certain that one of the brothers would not have careless left it this way. There must be someone inside. She approached this door, touched it gingerly. It was cool. The wood beneath her fingers pulsed. She felt the music. Slowly, she moved her head and rested it against the surface. The music surged through her entire body like an electrical current. It came from behind the doors. Gingerly, she moved her body so as to cover the opening completely. Now she felt the music as a wind more than a vibration, and it entranced her and both dared her and soothed her to come after it.

So she did.

Wrapping her shawl tighter about her shoulders, she took a step into the dim – and realized it was not dark at all. The stone steps ascending were lit by ceremonious glass lamps on either the right wall.

She stepped down this flight, going carefully, making sure one foot was firmly placed before moving the other. This descent with the pulsing music gave her the sensation of giving up the conscious and controllable and ascending into a dream.

At the bottom of the flight, the lamps continued, but their light offered no warmth. It was chill. The ancient and deteriorating stone looked like it would dissolve at a touch in some areas, but this she dared not do because in the walls, on either side, niches where the bodies of the deceased were placed demanded a sort of solemnity. It felt disrespectful to go through here quickly without thought to the dead, yet it also did not do to linger.

And now she wondered if the song were not the dirge of the deceased souls. But it winged and beat and violently hurtled itself about the catacombs, even now, that she could not help but to think it too alive with humanity to be a ghost's melody.

She came to a crossways, turned right, and was met with another right away. She chose her course deliberately, choosing in which direction she felt the organ playing, and tried to keep account of her turns on her fingers so she might simply reverse them to find her way back.

The music of the organ now was growing so loud that Francesca found she could hardly nurse a thought, and we will say that this is the cause for her further lack of judgment. One would think that she would warrant the trouble the musician went to distance himself as a sing of his privacy and the height of sound as a tendency toward powerful emotion. But she pressed on.

Around the corner one final time, Francesca met a gap where the tombs did not line the wall like sideways books. It was bright through that gap, for a generous light emanated from it, the kind of light that burns, as from a fire. She stepped into warmth.

It was a high-ceilinged chamber, vacuous, with the same ancient stone as the rest of the catacombs, but newly furnished. She could not see to the far end, but here, modern furniture sat about the extensive room, a silent, inanimate audience. At what seemed the midpoint of the long side of the rectangular room, a large fireplace, the height of two men, threw out light from a regular-sized fire. A lush rug thrown out here indicated a sitter. Armchairs were stacked with books and papers, and along their legs across the floor and over to low tables, these reckless notes and texts made scholarly trails. Mirrors were about, some hanging, some standing like creatures with hungry mouths. There were dressers draped with laces, basins, and other oddities. She thought she saw a deck of cards, a chessboard, Chinese lanterns, and even some hand-sized dolls. But these things were of little account to her as was the main feature. At the end of the chamber, a patriarchal organ, a beautiful object which must at one time have adorned a great cathedral, rose its brass, hollow limbs heaven-ward. And there, at the bench, enveloped in papers as one in a field of flowers, a figure tossed about with the notes, violently succumbing himself to their raucous abuse. She only saw the back of him. His dark hair hung limply about his ears and the nape of his neck, as was the fashion, only in such a way as to make him look disheveled. He was thin but not weak, long-legged, neatly dressed in a white dress shirt and tailored pants, but the rest of his wardrobe was missing. He looked half-dressed for an opera.

The moment this thought touched her mind, the music stopped, abruptly, as it was swelling into another mournful cry.

Francesca's feet became weights and she felt she must be sinking.

Toward the end of her quest, she thought the music almost unbearable. Now she wished desperately that it'd come and take away all her responsibility from her. For several minutes, silence brooded like an expectant schoolteacher, tapping its toe and waiting for a suitable explanation.

"I – I'm sorry," Francesca started, her voice lifting innocently.

"So," the man said. At least, she thought it was the man, though the sound of him seemed to be coming from all directions at once. "You want to hear the phantom playing?" The voice was a dark and heavy twilight.

"I didn't think it was a phantom," Francesca answered honestly. "Why do you not play in the open, where people can acknowledge you?"

"I want them to know I am dead,"came the voice, lowly.

Francesca studied the back of his head intently. "Sir, the music you play is not that of a dead man, but burning with life in every strain."

The man turned swiftly in a motion like a cutting knife.

Francesca started. Half of his face, which was clean-shaven and not uncomely, furrowed an eyebrow at her distrustingly. The other half was ashen, smooth, and ghoulish, without expression or any hint of life within.

As the one part of his face studied her and seemed to relax at her unthreatening appearance, Francesca came to realize that the left side of his face was not a face at all, but a hollow mask, a caricature of a human being. It seemed to be broken at the bottom, where his mouth and chin were revealed, but otherwise, the only hole was for his eye, so his blue gaze was not obscured.

"What do you know," his low voice drew out evenly, "of life and death?"

"Well . . . both my parents died when I was very young," she answered naively. "And my great aunt just recently. She sent me here to live with the Benedictine sisters. I came all the way from Spain."

The phantom man said nothing, regarding her. Then, "Why did you follow the sound of my organ? No other has dared to determine its source."

Francesca thought of this for a moment, for in her honest way, she would not rush to answer when she did not quite know herself. "I like it," she concluded. "It's beautiful, and it beckoned me."

"Why beautiful? Others would say it is frightening."

"People are only frightened of what they do not understand."

His single dark eyebrow rose slightly, hinting at interest.

She continued, "It frightened _me_ at moments, but now I know it is only you."

"Only me . . .," he echoed strangely.

Francesca took a step closer, clasping her hands. "I think you ought to come up and play for us. The brothers and sisters were to sing some hymns just now. I was to join them. They thought I might sing well. Why not accompany them on organ? There is a grand one upstairs, polished and kept like new."

He half-laughed at her, but the sound of it was not pleasant. "What is your name?"

"Francesca."

"Francesca," he said sternly, and his tone was reinforced by his piercing eye, "I do not wish to be bothered." And with that, he swerved back round on his organ bench and flew the great instrument into a wailing outburst.

The young woman flinched and covered her head with her hands in shock. The note held, like the tremulous call of a tortured animal, and then tapered off. There was silence once more.

With his back still to her, the musician spoke, "Forget that I am here. Leave me to my tomb and my music."

But she knit her eyebrows at him in concern. "Sir," she said quietly. "Who are you? What is your name?"

"I've told you," came the reply, laced with impatience. "I am dead, and I have no name."

She sighed, furrowing her brow as an adult dealing with a small child. "I know _that_. But really, who are you?"

The man turned again, his surprise escaping. He gazed at her for a moment, before replying, almost reluctantly, "You might say . . . I am retired from the opera. I have no family or friends, but the others used to call me the Opera Ghost."

She puzzled genuinely at him. "That's not a name!" she informed him, as if he must not know. "You must have had a mother once. What did she call you?"

His piercing gaze became transparent, but for a moment. She felt like he was looking through her, through the walls, through the dirt and grime and worms, into some place far away. He looked incredibly vulnerable. Then, as quickly as the look surfaced, it submerged again, and his sharp features hardened. "I was once called . . . Erik."

Francesca nodded pertly. "Don(1) Erik," she said, smiling a little, and there was no disrespect or ridicule in her voice. She moved a little closer, then stopped, this time holding her hands behind her back like a schoolgirl. "What are you doing here, so far below?"

"I've always lived below," he murmured. He stood, gradually, hands hanging at his sides, and moved forward toward her. He stopped about a yard away. "Will you keep my secret?"

"Secret?"

He stepped to his side, and paced in a meandering circle about her. She turned with him, so that she could follow his progress. He seemed to be thinking. "No one knows I'm here, and I'd rather it be kept that way."

Francesca tiled her head a little. "I suppose . . . it doesn't seem to me like it's hurting anyone for you to be here."

Before she could finish, he stopped suddenly and, without looking at her, said, "Can you sing well?"

"Beg pardon?"

More clearly, as if she were deaf. "Can you sing?"

"I," she stumbled, as the question came out of nowhere. "I can . . .."

"I tutored a prima dona once, a strikingly angelic woman with a celestial voice. A note from her throat could move you to tears." He turned to her. "Have you ever heard the sound of pure euphoria?"

Francesca wondered why she felt like one guilty as she shook her head no.

"Hm." He returned to his organ with mild disgust and sat down again.

The girl tred softly toward him and said quietly. "Could you teach one to sing? I mean, one with but an earthly voice?"

Don Erik kept his head forward. "I cannot perform miracles," he said drolly, "but I have been known to cast a spell or two."

Francesca couldn't help thinking him a silly creature, with his insistence on being shocking. "Maybe," she said timidly, her heart lifting with hope. "Maybe you could help me sing. I think I'd like to learn. And you'd never have to come away from here, and I would be able to hear your music still." She licked her lips. "I don't have much I could pay you, but I have a small bit of garden in the cloister. And I can sew, and darn, and weave, if I put my mind to it."

Don Erik waved his hand, dismissing her offers. "I am in no need of these things."

Francesca swallowed shallowly, recognizing her rejection. She glided away quickly over the graying stone, dodging chairs draped with sheets and shelves cluttered with objects, but a call from the masked man bid her stay.

"Child," the voice echoed.

She turned.

"Sing something."

She put a finger in her mouth and chewed it harmlessly, then removed it. The only song she knew well was the Padre Nostre put to music. So she sang it for him.

He was very patient, and waited for her to finish. When she had, she saw his glinting eye move over her in a wave of disapproval. She felt embarrassed and unworthy, like a baby offering mud lumps to a sculptor.

Then Don Erik said, "You sing with your nose. Your falsetto cracks, and your range is limited, with an almost warbled affect that reminds one of a sporadic popinjay. You can carry notes, but you carry them flatly, without passion or fervor, as if they were packages to be delivered, and not bits of divinity. I can hardly say you are worth my time."

Francesca took this with dignity, and banished it all to the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

"But something underlies your voice, like a mother gently rocking a cradle . . . a nurturing reverence." He tapped the side of his organ impatiently with long fingers. "I might be able to make you sing better – not well . . . but better."

Francesca, full of awe, said nothing.

"Go away now," Don Erik told her dismissively. "Come again tomorrow evening, if you can get away. I want to hear you sing something other than a pedantic prayer."

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_(1) Don - old Spanish title roughly equivalent to _Lord_. Therefore, Francesca calls him Lord Erik._


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